Early FAAB

I was a big supporter of early FAAB. Anything that allows teams to stay in competition longer is a good thing for the league.

One by-product of early FAAB is that teams can take more chances in the draft and throw away their mistakes before they become too painful. This is henceforth to be known as the Dohman rule. It’s most obvious in taking a shot at a couple of $1 pitchers at the end of the auction.

I hadn’t really thought of that until the Doc brought it up in one of his early pitching analyses on this site. And I don’t think this was properly considered when we changed the rule this winter. Had I the opportunity to call a do-over, I’d suggest early FAAB, but with some kind of penalty before some certain date. The penalty would either cause teams to use up their FAAB budget faster, such as higher minimum FAAB price, or a FAAB penalty, or would simply be a higher transaction fee. Personally I’d opt for the former, because my goal is not to increase the size of the pot. Even a few dollars can make a big difference toward the end of the season, and it might discourage teams from taking too many risks.

I like the early activity, though and wonder if it would be good to encourage earlier trading. Boof Brittain wants a moratorium on rules changes for a while, but I bet he’d go for that one.